Indieview with Chin Yong Kian

This week I got to virtually sit down with indie developer Chin Yong Kian. This is how things panned out.

Hello Chin. Welcome to SNAPPZILLA! For all of those who don’t know who you are, tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Chin Yong Kian, but people usually call me chiny or chinykian. I’m a part of a small team called Rotten Mage, based in Singapore, and we launched a game called Spacejacked on Steam earlier this year. In my free time, I make other games/prototypes as personal projects… like Jump Over the Rings!

So, your game, Jump Over The Rings! just released back in October, how has the launch gone so far?

I’m glad to say that many who’ve played the game liked it – I have friends who told me that they play it on a daily basis! That said, I only have a small number of downloads thus far, so I definitely need to work on reaching more people.

Hopefully we can help with getting you some more downloads. I love JOTR. How did you come up with the idea/concept for the game?

Thank you! Truth is, JOTR began as a flash game – I basically tasked myself with making a playable game in as short a time as possible as an exercise and came up with the first iteration of JOTR, which I released on a number of flash game portals. Later on, when I got my hands on GameMaker and wanted some practice I thought I could remake JOTR for mobile and fix several of the issues in the first iteration. And so I did.

So really, JOTR is the way it is because of the constraints I’ve set for myself. I wanted a game done in a relative short amount of time, so a single screen highscore game fits the bill. Ring jumping came naturally after that.

I know Jump Over The Rings! has only been out for a little while now, but what’s your take on the mobile industry so far? Is there anything that you do/don’t like or wish you could change?

I think it’s really cool that pretty much anyone who’s willing to put in the effort can make and release a game on this platform to potentially millions of users. The problem is just how hard it is to get the game noticed without relying on a feature. I’ll keep working on it though, hopefully one day I’ll have the reach I need for my games =)

So, what’s next for you? Any future projects going on?

I quite literally just push a new update live for JOTR! That said, I have one more update I want to work on, which includes more costumes and maybe a little surprise if you score 100 points! Hopefully I can release the new update early February next year.

As for future projects, I’m already working on one, this time with my team at Rotten Mage. We’re making a puzzle game where you cut “rogue” constellations out of the night skies by splitting lines. I’ve got a devlog set up at tigsource with pictures!: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=58714.0

Last, but not least, with SNAPPZILLA being a website created by gamers for gamers, do you play video games yourself? If so, what are some of your all time favorites?